42 Comments, 42 Threads

That is cool. If I forgot to say so earlier, Congratulations to both you and your wife. My wife and I are looking at starting our family around the end of the year (when she’s closer to being done with her Masters). BTW, any plans on the all Lego room for the little one?

Having just gone through this experience, I can remember with vivid detail when we first heard our daughters heart beating. An unbelievable experience that never got old, I always looked forward to hearing the heartbeat with every visit!

So did you hear the heartbeat on a doppler or during an ultrasound? I know at 10 weeks the sex is determined, but I didn’t think you could see it at that point. Just wait until you see the hands, feet, head, and everything else on the ultrasound, it’s awesome.

The heartbeat is good. The ultrasounds are better. The kid finally out is coolest of all. Brace yourself for massive life-transformation. One thing people don’t say much about, but I have noticed. It will take your love and friendship with your wife to a newer and more grown-up level — though not stress free! Remember, the best thing you can give the kid is two parents who love each other, so he or she will see what to aim for in life. Second best thing is brothers and sisters — but one thing at a time!

I’d be curious if your doc offers the 4-D ultrasound. We never had that available. Get a video tape of whatever they do offer and show it to your kid when they hit 5. The look on my son’s face was priceless.

I hate to be the voice of consistency here, but haven’t I seen you post that you support a woman’s right to choose whether or not to abort her pregnancy? So why the excitement about that little heartbeat? It must either be: a) considered a secondary heartbeat of your wife that while distinct from her primary heartbeat is not that of a distinct individual; or b) the heartbeat of a distinct individual who cannot be considered human. I don’t see much to get excited about here.

I would like to wish you congratulations, but I will have to wait until your wife actually delivers so as not to usurp her autonomy over her body. I would not want to wish you congratulations then have her decide to terminate the pregnancy.

Actually, gender is not determined at conception. All babies are conceived female. There is a particular hormone that must be introduced to the developing baby at a particular point in gestation (8 weeks, I think, is the accepted date, but it’s been a while and I could be off) to make a baby male.

I’ve had four sons, and I have the ultrasounds of each of them on videotape. At the time, this seemed like the most amazing thing, and I suppose in some ways it still is for our oldest.

But really, I’ve noticed as they’ve grown that it just gets more amazing. Feeling those first movements is even more amazing than the ultrasound. Seeing your baby born is even more amazing than that.

The first smile, crawling, walking, talking – each of these is still more amazing than the last. My third son (4 yo), hearing my wife telling the older two about molecules, asked if he was made of molecules. When informed that he was, he asked if the molecules decided to make him.

And my eldest, at 9, is already engaging in rather sarcastic political commentary, comparing (for example) the hubris of reporters (a constant gripe shared by my wife and I) to the overconfidence of the internally-rotting Franco-Spanish combined fleet at Trafalgar.

So hold this ultrasound in your heart, but make sure you have plenty of room left over, because it just gets better from here.

Congratulations! 12 years ago I heard the heartbeat of my granddaughter shortly before her birth. It was so awe inspiring (awesome doesn’t cut it as a word anymore). I felt I was in the middle of 150 years, at least. My mother was 80 and I was 56, and the granddaughter’s potential lifespan is probably 90, so I did a quick reality check estimate and thought 150 years.
Your little ones lifespan is going to be at the 90 year estimate. Think about it. YOU will be affecting what happens in the world at least 50 years from now. But don’t count on it for the teen years. Have fun there is nothing like a newborn baby.

That’s terrific. Our doc wasn’t able to find the heartbeat until 12 weeks; cool that yours was locatable at 8.

You will love the 20-week ultrasound. It’s pretty amazing. It is another 14 weeks (or so) until I can speak to the actual birth experience, but so far, pregnancy has been tiring but fun. (I didn’t really have any morning sickness.)

Just this weekend my husband was able to feel it when the baby moved around; I’d been feeling flutters, then kicks, for about 10 weeks, so it was great to finally let him in on that excitement.

It was tasteless, rude, and inappropriate to post what I did. I did it anyway.

When I was in high school our World History teacher showed us documentary footage shot by soldiers who had liberated some WWII concentration camps. In one film the American soldiers go into the nearby town and round up some of the town’s people and bring them back to the camp. They show them the piles of shoes whose wearers had long since been incinerated or interred in a mass grave. They showed them some grizzly items that the nazis had made from the flesh of some of their victims: wallets, lampshades, etc. . . They ask these people how could you let this go on a half mile from your houses? How could you not know?

Some of the women fainted. Most just stood there dumbstruck. I imagine the reason they allowed it to occur was because they pretended that while something was going on over there it is certainly not the topic of polite conversation. Kristalnacht and the ghettoes probably made for awkward discussions over tea. So they pretended that nothing that bad could really be happening over there, and if it were it really wasn’t their concern.

My first born is three months old. Prior to my wife’s pregnancy I was probably reluctantly pro-life. But when I heard my son’s heartbeat, when I watched him moving his hands and legs on the ultrasound, he ripped my heart out. And I would think about the fact that he was awarded no protection. The only value that this little person had was that value placed on him by his mother and I. I just could not shake the fact that he was worthy of more than that. His value, his worth is independent of the motives and desires of the two flawed people to whom he was born. It offends me that the law says otherwise.

When can we discuss the merits of the pro-life position if not in light of the joy and exuberance of an expectant father?

On a light note, I first read that entry as saying “Today, I heard the heartbeat of the 71-YEAR-old creature currently residing inside my wife.” Took me a long moment to understand what the hell he was talking about.

Ditto on the Mazel Tov!

As for PJM: the excitement comes with the potential for life. There is nothing wrong with living in the future a bit and being totally excited by a tiny representation of the joy to come. But the potential for life is not the same as a fullborn life. It isn’t nothing, to be discared without care either… But there is a reasonable in between.

Those who support the choice, the option, for a would-be parent to terminate a pregnancy before bringing a life into the world appreciate the seeds of life just as much as you do. If someone decides they want to give birth to that life and raise it as a new member of their family, they aren’t going to wait for the first day out of the womb to have feelings about it. They are just going to recognize that not all pregnancies are as joyful, that carrying a pregnancy to birth isn’t always the right choice, and that bringing a child to life is a big decision as well.

Your comparison to the death camps (where the close family of many of us died or barely survived) is not accurate at all. It’s more like the statements of those hyper-ideological vegans who condemn all meat-eaters as murderers, or the fly off the cliff hysteria of those on the looney left who think we are already living in a full blown fascist state here. You already know it’s in bad taste, too, so I really don’t see a reason for it.

If you think an ultrasound exciting…just wait. There is nothing more wonderful than the birth of a child. All the best.

But, as an aside, I brought pictures of my daughter in utero from an ultrasound to my work, in a newsroom. A woman who said she was deeply into women’s rights told me that she believed ultrasounds were part of a right-wing conspiracy to make people think that fetus was a baby.

It was a little weird, I’ve gotta say. Didn’t endear me to anyone. “Hey, that’s not propaganda…it’s my first picture of my kid.”

PJM, speaking as a hardcore, orthodox Roman Catholic pro-Lifer and father of 4 with one on the way, let me say that you must be the most retarded person on “my side” of this issue in the whole wide world.

Invest in that software that types what you say so that you can blog about the late nights dealing with colic (Hint: try running the vaccuum cleaner). You can’t type while carrying a screaming baby and pacing.
Of course, I add my congrats. I also warn you that every one of your friends who are parents already will NOT be sympathic to whatever you whine to them about….

I found a baby bottle that looked like a 7up bottle. I shall endevour to return to that store to find a more “adult beverage” type bottle. Or possibly, the 7up can be modified. What comes in a green bottle?